Problems After Surgery

As some of you know my Jasper had knee cap surgery a week ago yesterday. I had to take him early this morning back to his vet. He has a HUGE bruise on the inside of his upper thigh and his knee and part of his leg swelled. Scared, yes. Worse problems in hobbling. His cast is off and his vet had to drain his knee and leg as he was retaining water from sleeping on that leg and licking it too much. He also had another injection but for pain, to get rid of that bruising and the redness on his leg. The bruise was from the clamp during surgery. Now he has on his adorable :dognowink: lampshade and he has to wear it 24/7. He has to keep it on eating, drinking and sleeping. He can't get to his dishes so for lunch he had a plain McDonald's hamburger (not very often) which I hand fed him. The cone is a large and he looks at me as if "mom get this cotton pickin' thing off me...NOW!" We go back to the vet in 4 days. For all the vet did, he didn't even charge us a red cent. I am just so thankful he will be ok.

No injury or accident. His knee cap was separated and going back and forth. That's what gave him pain and hard to walk. I had thought he had gotten ice a couple of times under his pads from al the rain and sleet we got but it only got worse and I knew something else was wrong. Good thing for us mom's, huh? :msnohyes: Thank you for inquiring.

Poor Jasper. He must of loved being hand fed a McDonald hamburger though. Those cones make them so clumbsy. My last dog had to wear one after surgery. The poor thing he was a Bassett so it made walking for him so difficult. The funniest thing though was he would get stuck with him facing the wall and the opening of the cone up against the wall so he couldn't move side to side. I guess walking backwards never crossed his mind. I would have to go rescue him every time, all the while laughing.

I'm a little late coming to this thread, but I sure hope your doggie is recovering nicely. One this to consider for the future is alternatives to those hard plastic cones. You can also get a soft air-filled collar which I think might be a little more comfortable for the dogs. We used one on Joey when he got fixed.

My dog had the cone on recently and she was able to eat if I put her bowl on top of something so it was raised up enough for her to reach the food in spite of the cone. I used a spare dog bowl and flipped it upside down and put her bowl on it. She was able to eat fine. She did have trouble walking through doorways.

Other things that I have found have been great for rehab are kids gel packs I got at Target that I can freeze and put on swollen areas. I used those wrapped with that wrap that sticks to itself. I would wrap it on my dog and put her in her crate for about 20 minutes. If you need heat, I found a spa wrap thing at TJ Max and I keep several and can wrap them on the dog if needed. Canon had a torn ligement in her toe that caused shoulder muscles to tense up, so we had to warm muscles before workout and then ice with gel packs after workout. She's all better now.